"This is photography, nobody has to die"

This weekend I was lucky enough to hop over to Boston to catch The Flash Bus. Boston is a beautiful city so I spent a few days looking around there too.

David "The Strobist" Hobby

David Hobby and Joe McNally were both excellent, keeping a room full of a few hundred photogs happy can't be an easy thing. Their deep understanding of their trade and ability to translate their experiences provided a wealth of information and practical application tips to a wide audience from high school age to full time professional photographers.

Joe "TTL" McNally

Although David and Joe approach lighting from different angles (no pun intended) you can see a consistency between them too, they both use different techniques but with the same ethos. What I mean is although Joe uses the TTL approach whilst David prefers manual, they both work in a relative space, less bothered about the exact values of light they are using and more focused(npi) on the balance of that light.

I can't begin to tell you how much I have learnt on just this one day but it was immense. I have lots of things to go and try now and put into practice. Both Joe and David are clearly superb photogs but are both very down to earth and humble. They both have an experimental view of their work and are willing to push the boundaries and try new things, as David said "This is photography, nobody has to die".
At one point during David's talk he said "put your hand up if you came from over a hundred miles to be here today", half the room responded but as we crept past two, three, four and all the way up to over five hundred miles it was only me left with my hand up.

David (in his Maryland accent) "Where are you from my friend?"

Me (in my best home counties accent) "London"

David (in his best Dick Van Dyke accent) "oh London"

Room [Laughter]

David (back in his more natural Maryland accent) "no, seriously, you came all the way from London to be here today? that's awesome"

Me (in my slightly shy trying not to sound too British accent) "well, yes"

Apparently, the person that came the furthest to each event gets a copy of David's Lighting by layers DVD set, so at Three thousand, Three hundred and Thirty ish miles I got the Boston set! I'm on disc two/seven and will put up a review as soon as I can spend enough time away from them :) Shame there's not a prize for being the person who came the furthest out of all the venues ;)

Thanks to both David and Joe for a thoroughly entertaining and informing day and thanks to their sponsors for making it so accessible for people.